Salka Viertel: Every Sunday

Overview

After 1933, Hollywood became "a ghetto under Pacific palms,” home to refugee artists like Fritz Lang, Thomas Mann, Bertolt Brecht, Arnold Schoenberg. Salka was a brilliant Austrian ex-actress and MGM’s most highly paid screenwriter: her Sunday salons were the exiles' refuge and rescue. “It’s more that I’m asking than a bed for the night. It’s a chance to talk of home…” [Greta Garbo, in Salka's script for QUEEN CHRISTINA] "The climate alone is enough to drive you meshuggeh!" [Hannah Arendt]